Wrapping Up

Dave here...sorry for the delay. Apparently the one thing the Europa has failed to repair is its internet connection.

Caitlin and I wrapped up our exploration of Irish sport with the Northern Ireland leadership team of the GAA and the community development department at the Irish Football Association (the FAI's equivalent in Northern Ireland). The GAA presented us with similar information that they had revealed at Croke Park. We learned how many folks participate in Northern Ireland. We continue to be baffled by the numbers involved in GAA sports - exceeding 1,000,000. When you consider the total population of Ireland/Northern Ireland, this is HUGE. Any given club might have 600+ participants from youth through county levels. Not surprisingly, just about everyone at the meeting had a wedding to attend this weekend.

We did probe further to see what, if any, disparities existed between opportunities for men and women. There was one woman present at the meeting and it was helpful to get her feedback. She and her colleagues are very proud of the fact that since GAA sports are so culturally ingrained that they really do emphasize sports and resources for all, and so girls and women were getting opportunties similar to those of the men. I also got the sense that there was more televised opportunities for women's GAA sports than we would see with women's sports in the States. This was all reinforced later on Friday by the Irish Football Association, who rarely rush to compliment the GAA as they are viewed in some ways as competitors. But they felt the GAA did do a lot for women's sports.

The IFA is an interesting organization. Sandwiched between the football giant that is Britain and the much larger Republic of Ireland's FAI, they have made great strides to establish their own place in the world of sport. Here, progress seems aligned with how the sport and the people of Northern Ireland evolve from identifying as 'British' or 'Irish' to identifying as 'Northern Irish'. This is starting to become more prevalent among IFA participants, but the process is slow as sectarian beliefs are not only still present in Northern Ireland, but descriptions of the leadership group of the IFA suggest it is an older, homogenous group of men that can get bogged down in the past. Observations of women's participation in IFA activities, and certainly at the leadership level, revealed that women still did not have an equal place in the game. I sense this is why the community development folks that we met with were complimentary of the GAA, as they aspire to acheive similar equalities in their own activities. We did have some discussion regarding Title IX in the United States and how a similar policy might be implemented in ROI/NI. Caitlin and I were encouraged when two senior managers at the IFA began debating the feasibility of this happening in Northern Ireland. Ultimately, it became a brainstorm of possibilities rather than a rejection of ideas.

During our travels, I found Irish sport in many ways to be grounded more solidly on culture and values than American sport, and superior in terms of organization and structure from youth through professional divisions. In other ways, I found American sport superior, largely due to the resources involved and to advancements related to policies like Title IX. Yet I question whether those vast resources are a greater benefit or a hinderance to the progress of sport in America. This has been an amazing opportunity for us to grow and evolve our own mission and programs at Sport in Society. I look forward to following up with all our Irish colleagues to expand education opportunities for our respective networks through improved graduate and undergraduate coursework, through sharing of best practices on how to structure and operate youth sports programs, and through improved impact evaluation of all our efforts using sport to bridge deep rooted cultural divides.